Sugarcane juice

“ While growing, sugar-cane is managed much like Indian corn.
39. When ripe, the cane is cut and brought to the sugar-mill, where the juice is expressed between iron or stone cylinders, moved by steam, water, or animal power. The juice thus obtained is evaporated in large boilers to a syrup, which is afterwards removed to coolers, where it is agitated with wooden instruments called stirrers. To accelerate its cooling, it is next poured into casks, and, when yet warm, is conveyed to barrels, placed in an upright position over a cistern, and pierced in the bottom in several places. ”

“ The clarification of the juice forms one of the most important operations in sugar manufacture, since the higher the purity of the juice to be concentrated, the greater the percentage of sucrose that will crystallize, and the easier it will be to make a marketable sugar. If a high-grade sugar, or even yellow clarified sugar is to be made, this work should receive still greater attention. ”

“ The chief source of sugar is large grass (saccharum officinarum) , of which there are several varieties, differing essentially in productiveness, but the best of which is the Otaheita cane, the stem of which is higher, thicker, and more succulent than the Creole cane, and which yields not only one-third more of juice than the Creolian cane on the same space of land; but from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more fuel. ”

“ The largest and most successful factory is at Rio Grande, near Cape May, New Jersey, where the soil and climate appear favorable to the production of the crop. A careful calculation leads the author to estimate that the average amount of sugar which can be obtained in marketable form from sorghum is 4·75 per cent by weight of the expressed juice, or 2·37 per cent, or 46·4 pounds per ton, of the cane. Besides this, two other sugars than the crystallizable sucrose are present in the juice, but they are not separable in solid form, and enter into the molasses. ”

“ The custom of canning fruit in syrup is based on the improvement in flavor and texture which sugar gives to fruit. Sugar is not necessary for its preservation. Success depends upon thorough sterilization—that is, killing the organisms which cause food to spoil, and then sealing carefully to prevent their entrance. Fruit may be canned in water, in fruit juice and in syrup. ”

“ The preparation of various fruits or fruit juices with sugar is an important industry both for domestic purposes and for commerce in the United States. When the fleshy portion of the fruit is treated with sugar sirup and boiled, it produces the product known as preserves. When a fruit is reduced to a pulp and treated with sugar sirup and boiled, it makes a product known as jam. When the fruit juice itself is treated with sugar and boiled, it forms a product known as jelly. ”

“ An alarm contrivance to announce the passage of juices into condensing pipes has rendered considerable service in beet sugar factories.
A process for refining sugar in the factory, at less cost than it is possible to make raw sugar by existing processes, deserves notice. Sugars by this new method test 99.8, and sirups from the same have a purity coefficient of 70. Weight of dry crystals obtained is said to represent 66 per cent. of masse cuite used. The additional cost of the process is $30 to $40 per centrifugal. Concentrated juice or sirup may be used as cleare in centrifugals ”

“ Sugar and Cotton. With regard to the first, the introduction of the Chinese Sugar-Cane has demonstrated that every farmer in the State can raise his own sweetening. The experience of several years has proved that the Sorghum is a hardier plant than corn, and that it will be a sure crop as far North as latitude 42° or 43°.
An acre of good prairie will produce 18 tons of the cane, and each ton gives 60 gallons of juice, which is reduced, by boiling, to 10 gallons of syrup. ”

“ The sugar used in Asuncion comes from Europe and Brazil. The cost of machinery probably has been the obstacle to the establishment of a sugar-house of sufficient importance to supply the people with all the sugar of home manufacture they may require. The cane when cut is ground between three large cylinders made of a hard wood—a process which, instead of extracting the juice from the cane, leaves two-thirds of it in the half-crushed stalk. ”

“ It saves much trouble and expense. It also encourages small growers who could not afford to build mills and might in consequence abandon sugar raising. The leaves are all stripped off before the cane is shipped so that nothing but the stalks are sent. As the largest portion of sugar is in the part of the cane nearest the ground it is cut as close to the root as possible. After the juice has been crushed from the stalks by putting them several times through the rollers the cane, or begass, as it is called, is so dry that it can be used as fuel for running the mill machinery. ”

“ On other estates the second sugars, or sugars produced from boiling molasses alone, are not purged to dryness, but when sufficiently separated from their mother-liquor are mixed with the defecated juice, thereby increasing its saccharine richness, and after being converted into syrup in the usual manner are treated in the vacuum pan as first sugars, which in fact they really are. ”

“ Cane juice contains many ingredients besides sugar, the principal of which are albumen, gluten, gum, starch, resin, wax, coloring matter, and certain salts, all of which, either collectively or individually, have the power of preventing granulation, as may be proved by their addition to a syrup of pure sugar, which will then defy all attempts to make it crystallise. If, therefore, we want to make good sugar, we must endeavour to free our cane juice as much as possible from those substances. ”

“ To preserve both the true flavour and the colour of fruit in jams and jellies, boil them rapidly until they are well reduced, before the sugar is added, and quickly afterwards, but do not allow them to become so much thickened that the sugar will not dissolve in them easily, and throw up its scum. In some seasons, the juice is so much richer than in others, that this effect takes place almost before one is aware of it ”

“ Break three pounds of fine white sugar, the hardest and closest grained is the best, put it into a sugar-pan with three pints of clear spring water, set over a sharp fire, and when beginning to boil place it at the corner to simmer, and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, skim well and reduce to two thirds, it is then ready to use for jellies, &c. ”

“ It is interesting to note that while the cane is growing and in an unripe state, there is no discernible sucrose or pure sugar in it. As the ripening process goes on, the content of the cane juice is changed by the action of the sun’s rays, and the amount of sucrose as determined by polariscopic test shows when the time for harvesting is at hand. Nature’s operation in thus changing glucose or invert sugar into sucrose or pure sugar cannot be accomplished by any human means. ”

“ But in refining cane-sugar there is nothing to be turned back into money to reimburse the manufacturer for his outlay. What isn't sugar is dead loss."
The three now moved on and saw how the heated juice traveled by means of pipes from one vat to another, and how it constantly became thicker and clearer.
"One of the greatest dangers to successful sugar making is fermentation," observed Mr. Hennessey. "Sugar must continually be stirred by revolving paddles to keep it from fermenting ”

“ By this improved and scientific process of manufacture, the application of which to the purpose of preparing raw sugar from the cane-juice has now first been proposed, the most singular advantages are secured to the planter, in an increased quantity of sugar, the product of his operation, and in saving from the immense quantity of deteriorated material, uncrystallisable sugar and molasses, which were products of the former mode of operation, from the intense and long-continued degree of heat employed in the processes. The time and labour of the operation are also greatly decreased ”

“ If you want to have it particularly good to look at use loaf sugar, but there is no actual necessity, ordinary white sugar answering as well if care is taken. Add a pint of sugar to a pint of juice; stir well with a wooden spoon till all is dissolved, then set on the fire again till it jells, which it will in from half-an-hour to forty minutes. It will be noticed round the sides of the pan first; now remove from the fire, and when cool pour into glasses, jars, etc. This is much prettier than marmalade made with citron, and it has much the same flavour. ”

“ The curing or preparation of the crystals for the market by separating the molasses from them. Extraction of Juice.—The juice is extracted from canes by squeezing them between rollers. In India at the present day there are thousands of small mills worked by hand, through which Extraction by Pressure the peasant cultivators pass their canes two or three at a time, squeezing them a little, and, extracting perhaps a fourth of their weight in juice, from which they make a substance resembling a dirty sweetmeat rather than sugar. In Barbadoes there are still many estates making good Mascabado sugar ”

“ As the sugar-cane is usually cultivated all over India, and the produce of its juice, in some form or other, is universally [458] used, and constitutes a valuable article of export from India when converted into sugar, it may not be out of place to describe the construction and use of the patriarchal and simple form of mill represented in the drawing, which is at the village of Belaspore, on the left bank of the Ganges, near Mirzapore, about thirty miles below Allahabad. ”

“ Fruit juice is most desirable for drinking or for culinary purposes. Grape juice is particularly good as a drink. It may be canned with or without sugar but, except where the grapes have a large percentage of sugar, as is the case in California, some sugar should be added to the juice in canning. ”

“ Sugar has innumerable uses. As an article of food it is not surpassed, though it cannot support life alone, because it contains no nitrogen. It is the important ingredient in candies, pastries, sweetened drinks, etc. Molasses and treacle are much used and must not be confounded with the sorghum molasses made from the sugarcane of the Central States. Molasses and treacle sometimes have a peculiar and to many a very objectionable flavor, due to impurities present. ”

“ The fixed stipend of the Church and State officers of the Beni are paid by the income from these government sugar patches, worked gratis by the Indians under orders from the authorities.
The market price of sugar, in the town of Exaltacion, is one real per pound. A quantity of fresh juice is drank like new cider; it is called guarapo; the Indians are very fond of it. They make wry faces at aguadiente, but naturally take to chicha. An Indian always "acknowledges the corn." There are three kinds of sugar-cane here. The largest sized white cane is considered the least valuable ”

“ The spirit will be rapidly driven off when it is poured into the boiling syrup, and a bland and beautiful syrup will be the result; let it cool, and bottle immediately.
Gooseberry Syrup.—One pint of juice, one pound twelve ounces of sugar. To twelve pounds of ripe gooseberries add two pounds of cherries without stones, squeeze out the juice, and finish as others.
Lemon Syrup.—One pint and a quarter of juice, two pounds of sugar. Let the juice stand in a cool place to settle. When a thin skin is formed on the top, pour it off and filter, add the sugar, and finish in the bain-marie. ”

“ People who are to be believed tell me that the percentage of juice extracted from the cane is 50 per cent. below that attainable with modern machinery in many parts of the West Indies. It is obvious that until up-to-date appliances are substituted for the crude and obsolete methods of manufacture, the sugar industry has no prosperous outlook before it, nor can it hope to compete with beet sugar. ”

“ Fruit for use in pies or salads or as stewed fruit can be put up or canned without the use of any sugar at all, according to the canning specialists of the department. They, therefore, advise those who, because of the high price of sugar, have been thinking of reducing the amount of fruit they put up to can as much of their surplus as possible by the use of boiling water when sugar sirup is beyond their means. Any fruit, they say, may be successfully sterilized and retained in the pack by simply adding boiling water instead of the hot sirup. ”

“ The sugar cane contains about 88 percent of its weight of sugar juice. It is seen, therefore, that a considerable portion of the sugar remains in the bagasse. By the process of diffusion a larger proportion of the sugar is extracted than by milling, but the resulting juices are very much diluted and require a greater combustion of fuel for evaporation.
Clarifying the Juice. —The juice as expressed from the cane is a dirty-looking mass and requires to be clarified before it is concentrated. It is a very common practice to subject the fresh juice to the fumes of burning sulfur. ”

“ Sugar is divided into the following classes:—Refined sugar, white clayed, brown clayed, brown raw, and molasses. The sugarcane grows to the height of six, twelve, or even sometimes twenty feet. It is propagated from cuttings, requires much hoeing and weeding, giving employment to thousands upon thousands of slaves in the slave countries, and attains maturity in twelve or thirteen months. ”